00:00This is the Injury Report, presented by NYU Langone Health.
00:05All right, news broke earlier that Knicks star point guard Jalen Brunson is undergoing surgery on his left wrist,
00:11and the NBA Finals MVP is expected to return to basketball activities later this summer.
00:18So in today's Injury Report, Dr. Daniel J. Kaplan, sports orthopedic surgeon at NYU Langone,
00:24is joining us to talk about JB's wrist.
00:27We got the Kaplan to talk about the captain. Love it.
00:31Doc, let's get straight into this.
00:33What could be going on in the wrist or that forearm for Brunson and the team doctors to decide,
00:41you know what, let's get this operated on?
00:44Yeah, so, you know, there's a couple of key things.
00:47First, he played through it all season, so that means it's nothing bony.
00:51It's not like a broken bone or something like that.
00:53That means it's a soft tissue thing, like one of his ligaments or tendons.
00:57You know, again, he played through it, so it's unlikely it's like a full rupture or something of that sort.
01:02It was probably some partial tearing of one of the ligaments or tendons on the side of the wrist,
01:07and I think they probably felt like it was nagging better to get it taken care of now when you
01:12have time to recover
01:13than try to chance it during the season and then have to miss, you know, a big chunk of time.
01:18So let's say you had a client who, let's say, maybe didn't bring the city its first NBA title in
01:24over five decades,
01:26but in a pretty similar situation as Jalen Brunson right now, how would you treat the patient, and would that
01:33rehab be different?
01:37So, for an injury like this, it totally depends on what the patient feels, what their goals are, and kind
01:44of what their expectations are.
01:45So, Brunson's obviously an elite performer where if he feels that, it could affect him in a way that maybe
01:52it wouldn't affect me in my job.
01:54So, for maybe the average person, you would start with things like physical therapy, stretching, bracing,
02:00see if you can get them to a point where they can do all of their activities without pain,
02:05and then if they were still limited, jump to surgery.
02:08I mean, I guess that's essentially what they did do for Brunson.
02:10They let him play through it.
02:11So, the treatment ultimately would be the same, but all of our decisions are kind of patient-specific with this
02:17one based on what they feel.
Comments